IgE-mediated fish allergy in children

Abstract: Fish allergy constitutes a severe problem worldwide. Its prevalence has been calculated as high as 7% in paediatric populations, and in many cases, it persists into adulthood with life-threatening signs and symptoms. The following review focuses on the epidemiology of Immunoglobulin E (IgE)-mediated fish allergy, its pathogenesis, clinical manifestations, and a thorough approach to diagnosis and management in the paediatric population. The traditional approach for managing fish allergy is avoidance and rescue medication for accidental exposures. Food avoidance poses many obstacles and is not easily maintained. In the specific case of fish, food is also not the only source of allergens; aerosolisation of fish proteins when cooking is a common source of highly allergenic parvalbumin, and elimination diets cannot prevent these contacts. Novel management approaches based on immunomodulation are a promising strategy for the future of these patients

Variance Decomposition-Based Sensitivity Analysis via Neural Networks.

Abstract not availableJRC.G-Institute for the Protection and the Security of the Citizen (Ispra

Impact of screen exposure on pediatric vernal keratoconjunctivitis. a survey during the covid-19 pandemic in Italy

Abstract Background: The SARS-CoV-2 outbreak pushed the Italian government to start a strict lockdown, replacing school attendance with long-distance learning. This caused reduced exposure to sunlight but increased exposure to screens. Vernal keratoconjunctivitis (VKC) is a chronic infammatory ocular condition in which exposure to light plays a cardinal role. We conducted an online survey to evaluate the impact of screen exposure on children with VKC during the COVID-19 lockdown. Methods: We performed a survey-based observational study, asking patients followed at the Allergology clinics of Meyer Children’s University Hospital in Florence and of Policlinico Umberto I in Rome to provide grading on 6 subjective ocular clinical manifestations presented during the lockdown and to give an estimate of their hours/day of screen exposure. Results: Mean scores of signs and symptoms increased homogeneously when studying patients exposed to longer screen time. When comparing scores collected in 2019 to those in 2020, there was not a signifcant reduction in clinical manifestations, although the situation difered between the two centers due to geographical diferences in sunlight exposure. Conclusion: During the lockdown, there was a reduction in sunlight exposure but conversely an increase in the time spent in front of screens that correlated with the worsening of VKC signs and symptoms in direct proportion to the hours/day of screen exposure. Our results also showed a statistically signifcant diference in the relative impact of long-distance learning on VKC clinical manifestations in the diferent Italian regions